Burke's tick for Big Mines

The Federal Environment Minister, Tony Burke has given conditional approval to the biggest open cut coal mining projects ever seen in the North West.

The Minister says he was forced to move on the projects after the NSW Government leaked commercially sensitive information to the media.

Whitehaven wants to build a new open cut coal mine at Maules Creek 18km north-east of Boggabri.

It plans to extract around 12 million tonnes of coal a year and will clear more than 1300 hectares of the Leard State Forest including more than 700 hectares of critically endangered White Box Woodland.

While Idemitsu wants to expand its Boggabri Coal operations. It currently produces around 1-and-a-half million tonnes of coal a year and wants to increase that to 4.3 million tonnes a year.

Tony Burke said the projects will be subject to further strict conditions that will be negotiated directly between his office and the company, while the NSW Government will be kept out of the process.

"I don't think there has ever been a set of approvals that I have given with so little knowledge as to whether or not the projects will end up going ahead ... so even though it is being reported as being approvals, it is actually quite a different set of conditions to what would normally occur."

Some of the conditions include a bond and a biodiversity corridor between the two mines.

Whitehaven welcomed the approval and said it looked forward to working with the Department and the Minister's office in relation to the approval conditions.

Idemitsu also welcomed the development and said it will work with all stakeholders in the region to monitor and manage the cumulative effects of mining such as dust, noise and water impacts, on the natural environment.

Phil Laird, from the Maules Creek Community Council said the decision creates some serious issues for the district,

"We are very uncertain about what our role will be in the new process and the long term ensuring that these conditions are carried out.

"What we have found out with other peoples mining experiences is that the conditions are put on, but they are never carried through because there is no one do it, the budgets are run down, the EPA is not up to scratch, there is political interference, government's change. Once they get their foot in the door and that is what the miners know, it's on."

"We have verbal advice, we are waiting on written advice about three angles for legal challenges, we believe that if approval is given on false or misleading information, which we regard the offset package to have been, then that opens the door to a legal challenge."

Carmel Flint, from the Northern Inland Council for the Environment said the decision to grant conditional approval was very strange,

"The Minister is supposed to make these decisions on the merits of the case, and I really can't see how the Minister can suggest that the leaking of a document by third party can have any real impact on his decision, he is supposed to make his decision on the merits of the case."

She said some of the issues raised by the conditions include no requirement to have the offset areas in place before construction of the mine begins, ignoring the discovery of a nationally endangered plant species found by an independent ecologists last month, and a requirement to monitor groundwater but no thresholds for preventing drawdown.

She also said it appears the haste of the decision had caused an interesting typo,

".. a trillion dollar mistake in the approval - clause 16 requires the miners to pay '$1,500,000 million' instead of $1.5 million for threatened species recovery work."

While the dust settles on the decision, local councils and communities are looking more closely at how to prepare for the major coal mining projects.

Pat White, the General Manager of Narrabri Shire Council said the decision will make the council work harder as it prepares.

"It is a 30 year project, so it is quite a big investment in the area and there will be quite a bit of social infrastructure provided through the agreements, and a lot of new jobs will be created."

He said council believes over the next three to five years it will need 1500 houses.

Idemitsu plans to build 10 houses in Boggabri and a further 20 in Narrabri along with contributing $8.7 million over the life of the mine to support the construction and improvement of community infrastructure works.

Both projects were considered by the Independent Expert Scientific Committee established by the Federal Government to consider major projects.

Tony Burke said he had considered advice from the Committee on the water-related impacts of the developments.

The Committee received the Environmental Assessments prepared by the mining companies and the reviews provided by the Planning Assessment Commission, Department of Planning and the Office of Water Science. The Committee also used information from the Namoi Water Study.

The Committee Chair, Lisa Corbyn said there were several areas it concentrated its advice on.

"Ground water and understanding the cumulative impacts of the mines, we did use a model prepared by the proponent, but the Namoi Water Study was also very useful in understanding the potential impacts on the alluvial aquifer, and the hard rock aquifers. So we raised concerns that a cumulative impact assessments specific to those projects is undertaken.

"We also looked at the water related aspects associated with vegetation clearing... we need to get additional information on the relationship between potential ground water draw down and the root zone depth of the protected ecological communities ... this may be an area that we'll consider additional research on.

"It did seem to me that our advice has been reflected in a few of the conditions, and in particular we were concerned to make sure that the mines if they were approved had to collaborate together to develop both surface and ground water management plans that would be consistent with national water quality management strategies, but also they address the cumulative impacts on draw down, the depth of root zones and identify trigger levels .. and in particular the conditions made a comment that the material come in prior to the commencement of construction."

She also said the Namoi Water Study was a very valuable resource for the Committee,

"We certainly were appreciative of having the Namoi Water Study which gave us a much more regional context for making or preparing the advice, had we not had that it would have been more challenging for us."